{"id":187474,"date":"2022-07-05T07:30:54","date_gmt":"2022-07-05T11:30:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/?p=187474"},"modified":"2022-06-29T14:35:18","modified_gmt":"2022-06-29T18:35:18","slug":"brother-sister-huskies-bringing-new-brew-to-connecticuts-shoreline","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/2022\/07\/brother-sister-huskies-bringing-new-brew-to-connecticuts-shoreline\/","title":{"rendered":"Brother-Sister Huskies Bringing New Brew to Connecticut\u2019s Shoreline"},"content":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s fizzy! It\u2019s fruity! It\u2019s fermented!<\/p>\n

And it\u2019s coming to the Connecticut shoreline this summer courtesy of two UConn alums and their personal love of kombucha \u2013 the bubbly fermented and sweetened tea that\u2019s all the rage with homebrewers and that has surged in commercial popularity in America over the last several years.<\/p>\n

After graduating from UConn, sibling Huskies Mike Brannan \u201915 (BUS) and Ashley Brannan \u201918 (CLAS) \u201920 MA both moved to southern California, where they experienced their first tastes of the tart, brewed beverage.<\/p>\n

\u201cHere, kombucha is such a popular drink, almost parallel to coffee, where you can go to any cafe and expect to find it,\u201d says Mike, who studied accounting at UConn. \u201cGiven it was so popular, eventually we just had to try it. And we really ended up just liking it a lot.\u201d<\/p>\n

They started brewing their own kombucha at home using gallon-sized kits and experimenting with different fruits, herbs, and flavors. They also introduced the fermented beverage to their father, Dave Brannan, who still lives in Ledyard. Brewing kombucha became a favorite family activity, especially during peak times during the COVID-19 pandemic.<\/p>\n

\"Mike
Mike Brannan (Contributed Photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cThis was one of our main activities every week, brewing kombucha \u2013 what\u2019s our new flavor? \u2013 and really getting into it,\u201d Mike says. \u201cOn the West Coast, it’s so prevalent. And then coming back east and not really seeing it as present, it\u2019s like, \u2018Hey, why don’t we kind of try to bring some of that over here?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

The bicoastal Brannans founded their family-operated kombucha brewery \u2013 called 860Kombucha<\/a> \u2013 in a 1,500 square-foot facility in Mystic stocked with 50-gallon stainless steel tanks where they brew their tea and ferment it over the course of two-to-three weeks. Their dad serves as the operation\u2019s brewmaster.<\/p>\n

\u201cA lot of the equipment in there is very similar to equipment you would find in a beer brewery,\u201d Mike explains. \u201cThe difference is really that we don’t have a top on it, it’s not enclosed, and that’s essentially how we make sure our product is not alcoholic. Because there’s oxygen getting into the kombucha. And then from there, we move everything into kegs, where we then flavor it with different fruits, herbs and juices.\u201d<\/p>\n

After brewing, the kegs go into the facility\u2019s walk-in refrigerator to stop the fermentation process.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat allows us to keep a non-alcoholic product,\u201d Mike says, \u201cand also, it\u2019s nicer to drink cold.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Brannans focus is on creating a hyper-local kombucha product \u2013 they\u2019ve partnered with local farms to source fresh, seasonal ingredients for their brews. They plan to launch their first commercial batches in July, and have also partnered with local brew pubs, restaurants, and bars interested in adding the locally fermented brews to their menus.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe get elderberry juice from one of the farms that we work with,\u201d he says. \u201cSo, in our first couple of batches, we’ve had a lot of elderberry-heavy flavors. When we go into the fall, maybe then we\u2019ll start picking up more apple, or something that’s more in season during that time. You’ll probably see us mixing it up quite a bit initially, and then trying to hold on to whatever people are really, really crazy about.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Ashley
Ashley Brannan (Contributed Photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cWe get to have a lot of fun experimenting with flavors, mixing up different fruits and herb flavor profiles, which isn’t really something that you get out of the national brands that you can get at the grocery store,\u201d says Ashley, who studied communications at UConn. \u201cThat\u2019s a really fun thing for us to do, and it allows us to create really cool, complex flavor profiles.\u201d<\/p>\n

860Kombucha will officially launch on July 7 at an event hosted by Bank & Bridge Brewing in Mystic. In addition to availability at local restaurants and bars, the Brannans plan to offer growler sales out of their brewery space through their website<\/a> and to visit local events \u2013 like area farmers markets and concerts \u2013 so that people can try a cup of their fizzy drink.<\/p>\n

It’s a little bit tart, but then you get the sweetness from whatever the fruit flavor is that’s in there,\u201d Mike says. \u201cIt’s like a fruity vinegar, but then it also has this weird comparison to a beer, where it’s very crisp and carbonated. I think those different attributes make it a really good summer drink. It’s very fruity and refreshing.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s fizzy! It\u2019s fruity! It\u2019s fermented! And it\u2019s coming to the Connecticut shoreline this summer courtesy of two UConn alums and their personal love of kombucha<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":134,"featured_media":187499,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_crdt_document":"","wds_primary_category":0,"wds_primary_series":0,"wds_primary_attribution":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[147,2226,1731,2235,2306,2227],"tags":[],"magazine-issues":[],"coauthors":[2168],"class_list":["post-187474","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-alumni","category-clas","category-entrepreneurship","category-today-homepage","category-uconn-voices","category-uconn-edu-homepage"],"pp_statuses_selecting_workflow":false,"pp_workflow_action":"current","pp_status_selection":"publish","acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-03 05:41:42","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/187474","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/users\/134"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=187474"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/187474\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":187690,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/187474\/revisions\/187690"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media\/187499"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=187474"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=187474"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=187474"},{"taxonomy":"magazine-issue","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/magazine-issues?post=187474"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=187474"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}